Forgotten Child

The girl lies on the bed in the dark bedroom, gazing fixedly up at the picture on the ceiling.  It is a mural that she painted herself, during one of her rare sober moments, but now it just seems too bright and happy for her liking.  It brings back so many painful memories of the past, things that she doesn't wish to remember. 

Sighing heavily, she rolls over onto her front and turns her attention to the night sky, visible through the curtain-less window.  'It's so beautiful,' she thinks to herself and she longs to be up there with the stars, forever free.  The tears slide gently down her pale cheeks, and drip onto the white sheet, leaving dark inky smudges the colour of her eyeliner.

Downstairs she can hear voices, joking and laughing, and the chink of plates as the table is set for two.  The television blasts away in the background, advertising some revolutionary new product with the usual annoying jingle.  The sounds of water running in the kitchen and the scrape of chairs on the timber floor seem worlds away from her dark bedroom upstairs.

She pulls out her sketchpad and flicks through the pages filled with dark, eerie pictures.  Turning to a fresh page, she puts pen to paper and begins to draw.  She is soon so absorbed in the picture that the sounds from downstairs drift away, the only audible noise being the gentle scratching of her pencil on the paper before her.  As the night wears on, the room grows darker and yet still she draws. 

Slowly she pulls herself out of her reverie and looks around the room.  The faint strip of moonlight entering through the window lights the wall opposite her.  The scuff marks, the dirt and the chipped plaster once again so clearly visible in the dying light.  Downstairs is silent now, just the way she likes it.

All of a sudden, the audible silence is split with a crashing sound from the floor below.  She jumps, and listens hard.  Almost at once, there comes another, larger crash followed by bangs and raised voices.  What the argument is about, she cannot hear, but never the less, she knows only too well.  Sadly, she reaches over to her stereo and turns on the radio, raising the volume to drown out the sounds from the room below.

She lies back on her bed, sketchpad momentarily forgotten, as she begins to think about her life.  Once again, tears drip down her pale cheeks, but she never wipes them away.  She lets them fall so that they create a small inky black pool by the side of her face.

Suddenly, her thoughts are pierced by a loud, terrified scream.  She sits up quickly, turns the music down and holds her breath as she listens.  She hears two voices again, this time one taunting and laughing cruelly, the other pleading and terrified, the previous carefree jokes long forgotten.  She turns her head to look towards the stars once again, and as she does so, the silent neighbourhood is awoken by the sound of a gunshot.  Dogs begin to bark, women scream and children cry, yet now the room below her is deathly silent.

Trembling with fear, she sits quietly on her bed, waiting and listening.  She reaches out and closes her hand over the object on the table beside her.  As the crowd begins to gather outside and the flashing lights become brighter, she rolls up the sleeve of her jumper.

Hearing hushed voices downstairs, she creeps quietly to the window, and looks out on the scene below.  The street is filled with cars, people and bright lights and in her dark haven she suddenly feels so alone, so forgotten. 

The front door of the house, directly below her, suddenly opens and three people emerge.  One handcuffed, all with their heads bowed against the flashbulbs and bright lights.  Next, a person appears pulling the front end of a stretcher, which is soon on its way down the path.  As the procession passes, the crowd gazes at the white sheet covering the stretcher with a sick kind of fear.  A visible chill passes through the onlookers, but not one face looks up to meet her troubled gaze.

As the crowd begins to disperse and the flashing lights begin to fade, she leans against the chipped wall and breathes a sigh.  As the needle penetrates her arm, she slides silently down the wall and the empty syringe rolls away from her open hand across the dark, dirty floor.